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Saturday, January 16, 2016

Barb the French Bean here. I wish you all a very belated Happy 2016, barring the recent passing of David Bowie, Alan Rickman and René Angelil.

As for my own life, university studies and work have kept me at bay in terms of blogging; I've only just come out of finishing my finals for Fall term.

Still, the end of my 2015 went swimmingly. I spent two weeks staying at a friend's house in Strasbourg, which gave me the opportunity to see its famous Christmas Market, visit the Alsace region, and to step into Basel, Switzerland and a couple of German border towns.

The tree in Place Kléber, Strasbourg

One of the many Christmas decorations for sale

Colmar- La Petite Venise

In Colmar- La Petite Venise

Basel, Switzerland- along the Rhine

The Basel town hall

The cathedral that overlooks the Rhine

Swiss public telephone booths look suspiciously like the TARDIS

I wish I were kidding: I went to Germany literally to buy sausages. Mmmmmm...

As of next Monday, I commence the second semester of the first year of the Masters program. I look forward to working on my thesis and keeping up with my Dutch lessons.

Oh, yes, I probably didn't mention that I am learning Dutch. To give you an idea of how hectic last semester was, the other courses that I took made Dutch the "easy" class. Now I'm going to keep learning the language for fun, even if it means dealing with the onvoltooid verleden tijd and figuring out which nouns are De- or Het-woorden.

(Dutch Pro tip: MAKE EVERYTHING PLURAL.)

Also, if any Nederlands speakers can give me a helping hand in terms of conversational practice, I would be FOREVER grateful for it. It's not exactly evident to learn this language while living in France...

French and Coffee Bean

Barb: Join us as we go through life warding off creepers around the world!
Hanny: Come to the dark side, we have cookies....and beans.
Barb: Seriously. We have freshly-baked cartoon cookies.
Hanny: And if you go on our twitter, we have beans galore.
Barb: Be sure to share our hilarious feats of hilarity like a virus!
Hanny: Or else...